CS 491 Lecture 19 – Box Modeling

TODO

Watch this video on modeling a figure in Blender. (I’ve picked this one because it has less magic and professional intimidation than many I’ve seen.) No 1/4 sheet is due, but next class you will be assigned a 1-blugold homework to animate a human figure.

Lab

Today in lab your task is to model one of these:

I do not offer a step-by-step walkthrough of how to do this, because our ultimate goal is to make our own stuff. However, I do offer a few suggestions and Blenderisms that I consider essential knowledge:

Ask me questions if you’d like to do something but don’t know how. I consider this essential to this lab.

Start with a box, slice it in half, and add a mirror modifier, just as you did with the tyrannosaurus rex.

Focus on the coarse structure before attending to finer details. This means you should rough out the body and limbs before working on the toes, eyelids, teeth, or mouth.

After the box model has been subdivided and extruded so that it approximates your desired shape, add a Subdivision Surface modifier. Toggle the visibility of the modifier with the eye icon to make it easier to tweak the underlying box model.

Selecting entire edge loops at a time is really, really useful. Alt-Right Click or Opt-Right Click on an edge to do so.

Inserting new edge loops with Control-R is also really, really useful to add “contours” to your model. To smooth out a boxy shape, I often insert an edge loop and then immediately scale it down. To tighten up a round shape (like the eyelids), I often insert an edge loop, scale it down, and then slide it next to its larger neighbor.

Breaking a big face into smaller ones can be done with Subdivide or Knife.

You can round out an edge loop with Shift-Alt-S or Shift-Opt-S. This is helpful for smooth out the legs or body.

For the toes, make you have a couple of faces on the front of the leg. Then use Extrude Individual to draw out independent toes.